- 28/06/2025
Documentary, Mankind: The Story of All of Us S01E03 Empires
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LearningTranscript
00:00You
00:04We seek power
00:08We build empires
00:13We connect
00:18But one man's life and death will touch the lives of millions
00:24It will transform the destiny of an empire
00:32And change the story of all of us
00:41Amidst the chaos of an unforgiving planet most species will fail
00:47But for one all the pieces will fall into place
00:50And a set of keys will unlock a path for mankind to try
01:00This is our story the story of all of us
01:12Jerusalem 33 AD
01:15The provincial city under Roman rule
01:24Occupied for 100 years
01:34A man has been sentenced to death
01:38Today he'll be executed
01:45But his death will launch a global religion
01:55Today a third of mankind worships in his name
01:58Jesus of Nazareth
02:08Jesus of Nazareth
02:15Jerusalem is on the eastern edge of the Roman Empire
02:18A vast network of roads and trade routes
02:22One of the keys to mankind's progress
02:26Mass communication
02:30Now an idea born in the Middle East can spread around the Roman world
02:38Half a million people are in Jerusalem for Passover
02:42The Jewish festival celebrating the exodus from Egypt
02:43The Jewish festival celebrating the exodus from Egypt.
02:50And among them, followers of Jesus.
02:54They believe he is the Messiah.
02:57But his teachings threaten the peace.
03:01For that, he will be crucified.
03:06Rome's special punishment for pirates, slaves,
03:10and enemies of the state.
03:16Thousands of people died this way, but we remember one man.
03:20We remember one death as if it was the only one.
03:24Because this one death changed every part, every portion, every corner of the earth.
03:33In the crowd, a bystander.
03:36Simon from Cyrene.
03:40A colony in North Africa.
03:41Simon of Cyrene was a guy who just happened to be in Jerusalem.
03:57Here was this procession going by him.
04:00There was a man carrying a cross, and he was surrounded by Roman soldiers.
04:02And he, hey, you come over here and carry this guy's cross.
04:14And so we have got a common guy on the street who is now involved in this pivotal moment in history.
04:19It can take three days to die on a cross.
04:37Blood loss.
04:39Shock.
04:41Dehydration.
04:43Suffocation.
04:44Suffocation.
04:47Suffocation.
04:48Oh, my God.
05:18Crucifixions are so common, the Romans barely registered Jesus' death.
05:32This non-event, this thing that nobody noticed, except his friends and family,
05:39turned out to have the power to transform the entire Roman Empire
05:43and the course of human history more profoundly than any other single event over the past 2,000 years.
06:06The followers of Jesus will retell his story and use the power of the empire
06:13to spread his message.
06:221,400 miles from Jerusalem, the imperial capital, Rome.
06:29The largest city on earth, population 1 million.
06:43It's two and a half times more densely populated than modern Manhattan.
06:47But 18 years after the crucifixion, a series of droughts creates a food shortage.
06:57Rome needs 200,000 tons of grain each year or its people will starve.
07:02One in five are already on welfare.
07:14The mayor of New York City, the mayor of Washington, D.C.,
07:17faces many of the same problems that the Roman emperors did
07:21in managing the most important city of the ancient world.
07:24Rome's ruler, Emperor Claudius.
07:34Disabled, insecure, and the most powerful man in the Western world.
07:39All emperors had to please the populace and bring home the bacon, so to speak.
07:48But Claudius had to try harder than other rulers to legitimize his rule.
07:54As emperor, Claudius is regarded as a god.
07:58But he still needs the support of his people to stay in power.
08:06He orders handouts for the poor.
08:10But there's not enough bread to go around.
08:12Riots were a part of life in Rome.
08:31It was a way that the people had of getting messages across to their ruler.
08:35And the ruler ignored that at their peril.
08:38The previous emperor, Caligula, was assassinated.
08:46Claudius could be next.
08:58The best way for an emperor to win over the public?
09:03Build.
09:08Eight miles from the city, one of the largest engineering projects in the empire.
09:20A mighty aqueduct.
09:25To carry water to the city, Roman engineers carve a route through 45 miles of countryside.
09:32They tunneled through mountains.
09:37They bridged across valleys.
09:39They built these vast structures across huge amounts of space without dynamite, without any kind of modern tools.
09:47And yet they're so well built that 1,500 years after the end of civilization, those structures are still standing.
09:53The aqueduct is powered by gravity.
10:01It needs to drop one foot every 300.
10:06Too steep, and the water will overflow.
10:10Too shallow, it'll run dry.
10:16Precision engineering.
10:17The secret to Roman construction.
10:25A revolutionary new building material.
10:31Easy to mold.
10:32It sets rock hard.
10:36Concrete.
10:37People talk about the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
10:40But in many ways, ever since the Romans, we've been living in the Concrete Age.
10:51The key ingredient of Roman concrete is volcanic ash.
10:56And Rome is surrounded by 50 volcanoes.
11:02Today, two-thirds of mankind live in buildings made of concrete.
11:07The aqueduct cost the equivalent of eight and three-quarter billion dollars.
11:31Ten times more than the Hoover Dam.
11:34You have to imagine people coming into Rome, getting some of their first impressions about this center of empire.
11:46From this massive engineering project, it was advertising Rome's power.
11:52So everyone knows who built this wondrous mountain.
12:08The emperor names it after himself.
12:15Aqua Claudia.
12:17The waters of Claudius.
12:19It takes 14 years to build.
12:29400,000 blocks of stone.
12:34Six million cubic feet of concrete.
12:36Rome's aqueducts will deliver 250 million gallons of water a day.
12:55Enough for 1,300 fountains, 900 baths, and 144 public toilets.
13:11Rome is the most advanced city in the world.
13:16Apartment blocks six stories high.
13:18Each with up to 380 residents.
13:22Each with up to 380 residents.
13:25Under the roads, a sewage system helps sweep away 55 tons of waste a day.
13:35There's a police force.
13:36A fire brigade.
13:38A postal service.
13:4030 libraries.
13:4130 libraries.
13:43Three theaters.
13:44Three theaters.
13:45And 80 temples.
13:47Rome.
13:48The world's first megacity.
13:49The world's first megacity.
13:51The world's first megacity.
13:55The world's first megacity.
13:59Today, for the first time in history, over half of us live in cities.
14:16Across the world, there are 21 cities with a population above 10 million.
14:22Based on the blueprint pioneered by Rome 2,000 years ago.
14:39But Rome is more than a city.
14:43It's an empire.
14:47It'll spread its civilization across Europe and beyond.
14:50And it will do it.
14:57By conquest.
15:0561 A.D.
15:09An amphibious force 800 miles from Rome.
15:12Mankind spread civilization through conquest.
15:24The Romans are heading for Europe's northwest frontier.
15:32In command, General Suetonius Paulinus.
15:35Ruthless.
15:40Determined.
15:42He's Rome's enforcer.
15:46Having crushed an uprising in North Africa, his orders are to do the same in Britain.
15:51In Britain.
15:57For 20 years, Britons have waged a guerilla war against Roman occupation.
16:03No!
16:12Expert riders.
16:14Fierce warriors.
16:16They collect the heads of their enemies.
16:17Leading the resistance.
16:22A mystical sect of priests.
16:24The Druids.
16:26The Druids.
16:27The Druids.
16:32They worship the sun, the moon, and the forests.
16:39Druid means man of oak.
16:44Roman writers regard them as barbarians.
16:51And claim they practice human sacrifice.
16:58The altars were heaped with hideous offerings.
17:03And every tree was sprinkled with human gore.
17:12Rome has its eyes on Britain's natural riches.
17:16Its precious metals.
17:20Deep underground, lead, vital for aqueducts.
17:27Iron, copper, and tin for tools and weapons.
17:34And silver to bankroll Roman armies.
17:38Rome's economic model was built on expanding the empire.
17:50To do that, you need to have a perpetual war machine that's capable of conquest after conquest.
17:58Up to 50% of Rome's spending goes on the military.
18:06More than double the proportion the U.S. government spends today.
18:16Mankind's first full-time professional army.
18:19Each soldier is armed with a gladius.
18:31A short sword made from steel.
18:34Designed for close-quarter combat.
18:36A pillum, a heavyweight javelin, seven feet long with a lethal metal spike.
18:47And a shield used in defense and attack.
18:52As Paulinus' men make contact with the Britons, the writer Tacitus describes the scene.
19:06The Druids lifted their hands to the heavens, invoking the gods and pouring forth horrible curses.
19:14Our troops were in awe at such a spectacle.
19:22But Paulinus has been a commander for 20 years.
19:29He knows he has the firepower to destroy the rebels.
19:33But if you run up against a military might, like Rome, that passion wanes quickly, those guts fade to fear, and the next thing you know, you're a conquered people.
20:03The battle tactics of the Roman army were rehearsed and drilled and rehearsed and drilled to a fault.
20:15So that in the chaos and distraction of battle, everyone did their job.
20:23They knew what to do.
20:33By the time Paulinus has finished in Britain, his men kill as many as 80,000 people.
20:46The rebel stronghold destroyed.
20:50The Druids annihilated.
20:52Once a land is conquered, the first priority, a network of roads.
21:09The Roman soldier was a versatile soldier.
21:13He wasn't just a fighting machine.
21:16He was an engineer, a road builder, a bridge builder.
21:20This meant that you could have rapid deployment of the Roman army.
21:27The Roman road.
21:2923 feet across.
21:32Wide enough for an army to march 6 abreast.
21:44Roman roads connect Roman towns.
21:46And conquered people become citizens of the empire.
21:55Paris, London, Barcelona laid out to the same design.
22:07Baths, temples, plazas.
22:10And an arena, home to one of Rome's most popular exports.
22:18The games.
22:30Gladiatorial games were mass entertainment.
22:33It's the reality TV of, of, of, of the ancient world.
22:40There are 400 arenas across the empire.
22:44The largest hold 50,000 people.
22:48Admission to the games is free.
22:52Everyone can enjoy the benefits of Roman civilization.
22:55Most gladiators are slaves, forced to fight.
23:10But others are free men, looking for fame and glory.
23:14Gladiator's sweat is collected, bottled, and sold as an aphrodisiac.
23:33The gladiator was like a rock star.
23:36They had fans.
23:37You can even see in their graffiti, love notes from, from, from women to their, to their favorite gladiators.
23:46A top gladiator can earn the equivalent of $200,000 a fight.
23:51But most die, before they turn 23.
24:06Rome is at the height of its power.
24:10Its empire dominates Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
24:16A fifth of mankind is under Roman rule.
24:21But unknown to the Romans, on the other side of the world, there is another empire, just as big and powerful.
24:35166 A.D.
24:38Roman merchants.
24:41Their names lost to history.
24:445,000 miles from home.
24:46For two years, they have crossed oceans, mountains, and deserts.
24:55Heading beyond India, to a land they've heard of only in whispers.
25:00Somewhere out there, on the outer fringe of the world, where the sea is, there is a very great inland state.
25:20China.
25:20They're the first Romans to set foot in the Chinese capital, Lower Yang.
25:28They've entered another world.
25:40They've entered another world.
25:45Luoyang, China.
25:49Roman merchants, 5,000 miles from Rome.
25:52They've come in search of silk.
26:09The Romans were obsessed with Chinese silk.
26:12And they would cross oceans and cross lands in pursuit of these exotic foreign goods.
26:21It's not what they needed, but they were going after what they wanted.
26:29Romans spend the equivalent of $2.2 billion a year importing luxuries like silk from middlemen in India and Central Asia.
26:39But they don't know where silk comes from, or how it's made.
26:46They think it grows on trees.
26:51Silk manufacturing is a state secret in China.
26:55No Chinese weaver is to share that knowledge with a foreigner.
27:01China knows the value of its silk as an export commodity.
27:05It's a secret China has guarded.
27:09For 3,000 years.
27:18The Roman merchants are granted an audience in the imperial palace.
27:25Emperor Juan.
27:30He came to the throne age 14 and purged his family from the court.
27:35The most powerful man in the eastern world.
27:43Trade has fascinating effects.
27:44It involves the exchange of goods, but it also involves the contact of people from different places.
27:51People are meeting each other, speaking each other's languages,
27:55adapting to each other's cultural practices,
28:00learning about each other's traditions.
28:04The world becomes a more interconnected place when trade is going on.
28:11To the other people from the country.
28:12It's important.
28:14What about the world?
28:14It's a good for you.
28:15Say something.
28:16Visit yourself.
28:17Say something.
28:25It's a great for you.
28:28You are a great for you.
28:30It's a great for you.
28:30formerly breath.
28:32You are a great for me.
28:33I've seen something happening.
28:35You are a great for you.
28:36You are a great for you.
28:38The emperor welcomes the Romans, but doesn't let on how silk is made.
28:55Today, it is no longer a secret.
29:02Silk is a natural fiber spun by silkworms.
29:08Their larvae produce a single thread to make cocoons.
29:15It takes 2,000 silkworms to make a pound of silk.
29:23For the next 300 years, China remains the world's great exporter of silk.
29:30It travels west, through India, the Middle East, and into Europe.
29:42A 5,000-mile trade route, the Silk Road.
29:46The Romans wanted it, the Chinese have it, and as a result, silk connected the East and West for the very first time in human history.
29:57The Silk Road becomes a kind of channel along which goods, people, ideas, armies, religions are moving back and forth.
30:11Trade booms, but also the flow of ideas.
30:16Ideas that will transform the future of mankind.
30:24Damascus, Syria.
30:27Four years after the crucifixion, a man is on the run.
30:32Paul.
30:33Preacher, troublemaker, and the most important convert in the story of Christianity.
30:44Before his conversion on the road to Damascus, he persecuted Christians.
30:51But now, he will turn an insignificant sect into a world religion.
30:57Today, he is known as Saint Paul.
31:03He was a passionate guy.
31:05He was a guy with grit.
31:07He really believed in his God.
31:09He really believed in his gospel.
31:11He really believed that Christ was the only way.
31:17For spreading the message that Christ is the Messiah, Paul is a wanted man.
31:22To Jewish leaders, he's a heretic.
31:29To the Romans, a rabble rouser.
31:34If caught, he'll be executed.
31:42Damascus is a walled city.
31:45Every gate is heavily guarded.
31:52Paul's escape route, over the walls.
32:04For 20 years, Paul travels the Roman Empire, contacting other believers, spreading a message of hope.
32:28He's telling people, Christianity creates a salvation for anyone.
32:36If you have a slave who's being abused by his master, who has a horrible life, in the next life, his master will get what he deserves.
32:44And a slave, if he's a good man who accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, will get what he deserves.
32:49Paul writes letters to fellow Christians around the empire.
32:58Romans, Thessalonians, and Corinthians.
33:03They make up nearly half of the New Testament.
33:06There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for all of you are one in Jesus Christ.
33:16We who are many are one body in Christ.
33:20Love is patient and kind.
33:23Love is not jealous or boastful.
33:25It is not arrogant or rude.
33:26Those letters become very much like the Twitter tweets that we see during the Arab Spring.
33:33This was the communication of the time, and it was very much under the Roman radar.
33:41When I was a child, I talked like a child.
33:44I thought like a child.
33:45I reasoned as a child.
33:47Paul's letters are entrusted to other believers, who deliver them across the empire.
33:53But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
34:01By this time, Rome has built a quarter of a million miles of roads, enough to circle the earth ten times.
34:11Shipping lanes connect 250 major ports.
34:16This is how Paul spreads the word.
34:23So faith, hope, and love abide these three.
34:31But the greatest of these is love.
34:35The story of early Christianity really speaks to the power of ideas.
34:40That is what creates history.
34:43That's what changes people.
34:45That's what makes civilization.
34:47It's ideas.
34:48It always starts with ideas.
34:49A hundred and fifty years later, on the outskirts of Carthage, one of the largest ports in the Roman Empire,
35:07a group of Christians meet in secret.
35:10Private houses double up as churches.
35:19Early Christianity was a religious movement for the extremely poor, for the slaves, and for many women.
35:29Basically, anyone who didn't have a voice in Roman society could find a voice in the Christian movement.
35:36Across the empire, eight million people are slaves, with no rights in Roman law.
35:46Thirty million are women, who can't vote or hold public office.
35:54Among them, Perpetua.
35:56Twenty-two years old, a new mother, and a subversive.
36:07A year earlier, an imperial decree made conversion to Christianity illegal.
36:15Converts like Perpetua are now enemies of the state.
36:19Their crime, refusing to honor the Roman gods.
36:30You had to be a little bit crazy to be a Christian.
36:33It was enough to get you killed.
36:36Because you were saying your allegiance was to Christ and to his father, and not to the emperor.
36:42You would have been always looking over your shoulder, like, you know, is someone following me, or does someone know I'm a Christian?
36:52You would have been paranoid, and you would have been kind of afraid to really talk to anyone openly.
37:01The empire's secret police, the Frumentari.
37:05They use a network of informers to hunt down dissidents.
37:14They need to be better.
37:17Where did they go?
37:18Where did they go?
37:23Oh!
37:24Oh!
37:24Oh!
37:24Oh!
37:24Oh!
37:25Oh!
37:25Oh!
37:25Oh!
37:26Oh!
37:26Oh!
37:27Oh!
37:28Oh!
37:29Oh!
37:29Oh!
37:30Oh!
37:30Oh!
37:31Oh!
37:31Oh!
37:32Oh!
37:32Oh!
37:33Oh!
37:33Oh!
37:34Oh!
37:34Oh!
37:35Oh!
37:35Oh!
37:35Oh!
37:35Oh!
37:36Oh!
37:37Oh!
37:37Oh!
37:37Oh!
37:38Oh!
37:38Oh!
37:38Oh!
37:38Oh!
37:39Oh!
37:40Oh!
37:41Oh!
37:41Oh!
37:42Oh!
37:42Oh!
37:43Oh!
37:43Oh!
37:44Oh!
37:44Oh!
37:46Oh!
37:47Oh!
37:48Perpetua is charged with treason.
37:54She's sent to prison to await her fate.
37:57Oh!
37:58Oh!
37:59Oh!
38:00Oh!
38:01Oh!
38:02Oh!
38:03Oh!
38:04Oh!
38:05Oh!
38:05She keeps a diary. The earliest words that still survive. Written by a Christian woman.
38:14I am not to fight with beasts, but against the devil.
38:20And I know that victory is waiting for me.
38:27The ultimate test for any believer.
38:32To die for your faith.
38:45Christian dissident Perpetua faces a horrible death in the arena at Carthage.
38:52Christians are thrown to wild animals. Or covered in tar and burned alive. Or beheaded.
39:11But Perpetua can still save herself if she makes an offering to the Roman gods.
39:18The Romans come to these people and they say, look, you're stirring up trouble for us.
39:23Make some public declaration that says you're not against the state.
39:29Admit that the emperor is a god. And that will show that you're okay.
39:34Perpetua's family visits her in prison. She's allowed to nurse her baby.
39:49Her father pleads with her to back down and accept the Roman rules.
39:53Daughter, he said, have pity on me. Do not abandon me. Have pity on your baby. Give up your pride.
40:08I tried to comfort him saying, it will happen as God wills.
40:16A real Christian can't denounce their religion.
40:19They can't do it in public. They can't do it in private. They can't do it in their heart.
40:22They can't do it at all because they will burn in hell forever. That's the belief.
40:26Imagine how profoundly courageous one had to be.
40:39To put your life on the line and say, yes, I am a follower of Jesus Christ.
40:47The courage to do that, that simple act, speaks volumes about the power of faith.
41:07According to her diary, Perpetua goes willingly to her death.
41:12The courage inspires one of the prison guards, a man called Pudence, to convert.
41:25The courage inspires one of the prison guards, a man called Pudence, to convert.
41:32Thousands of Christians are executed.
41:53They become known as martyrs.
41:55But the more Christians the Romans kill, the more popular the religion becomes.
42:05In 100 years, the number of followers grows from 200,000 to 6 million.
42:13One in 10 people in the empire is Christian.
42:16From North Africa to Britain, the religion becomes so common, all laws against it are lifted.
42:35And then, a watershed moment.
42:38The year is 337.
42:49The emperor Constantine is dying.
42:56He makes a decision that will shape the future of the Roman Empire.
42:59The times arrived I have long hoped for, with an earnest desire and prayer, that I might obtain the salvation of God.
43:20The most powerful man in the Western world is baptized.
43:24For hundreds of years, Christianity was being quelled and put down by the Roman Empire, even persecuted.
43:35Now, it's okay to be a Christian.
43:37It's okay to be a Christian.
43:50Once Constantine is baptized, the whole empire then shifts towards Christianity.
43:57And then anybody who wants a stake in it, politically and economically, needs to be a Christian as well.
44:04A new Christian capital rises in the east of the empire.
44:17Constantinople.
44:19Today, Istanbul.
44:23At its heart, a church larger than any temple in Rome.
44:27I, Sophia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom.
44:44Today, there are 2.2 billion Christians.
44:47Nearly a third of the world's population.
44:50His followers have changed every part, every portion, and every corner of the earth.
44:57And that has to be understood of the power of this one person over 2,000 years ago.
45:03One man's death in the Middle East inspires a message that spreads around the world.
45:10A world connected like never before.
45:13A world connected like never before.
45:25Christianity, the lasting legacy of the Roman Empire.
45:29But when empires fall, we remake our world.
45:40We innovate.
45:42And explore.
45:46New ideas.
45:49New opportunities.
45:50But also, new conflicts.
45:58A clash of civilizations.
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